Johnny Cueto Stays With Giants, Fantasy Baseball Impact

Giants pitcher Johnny Cueto will remain with the team until 2022. After a down season this year, what should we expect from the veteran in 2018?

The San Francisco Giants did not play like their usual selves in 2017. With the injury to Madison Bumgarner and poor play from the offense, the team finished 64-98, tied for the worst record in the league. There is one player the Giants can rely on for next season, Johnny Cueto. Or can they?

He decided to forgo his opt-out clause and remain with the Giants for the next four seasons. The 31-year-old veteran had a good first season in San Francisco but played the complete opposite this season. What kind of performance should we expect next year?

In his first season, Cueto posted a 2.79 ERA, 1.093 WHIP, 8.1 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9 in 32 starts. He entered the 2017 season as the No. 10 starting pitcher drafted, 40.9 ADP in ESPN leagues. Cueto had a history of sub-3.00 ERA seasons, so he was a safe No. 2 starter in standard leagues.

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Unfortunately for those who drafted him this year, you were stuck with the No. 108 starting pitcher according to the ESPN Player Rater. He finished the season with just 25 starts, his lowest since 2013. Cueto had a 4.52 ERA, 1.446 WHIP, 8.3 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 in 147.1 innings.

While he was on pace to throw more strikeouts than the year before, Cueto was allowing more free paces and home runs in a shorter amount of time. Cueto saw a four percent drop in pitches landing inside the strike zone, resulting in fewer first-pitch strikes. Though, he did have a higher swinging strike rate.

He gave up fewer ground balls and more fly balls this season. He had a 50.9 ground ball rate and 29.0 fly ball rate in 2016 compared to 39.4 and 35.8 respectively. If the trend continues, he’ll likely reach 2.0 HR/9 by the end of the 2019 season.

Looking ahead to 2018, Cueto fell hard. From a fifth-round pick to a player outside my top 125. He will rank outside of my top-30 starting pitchers. I would rather draft a pitcher with higher upside like a Luke Weaver or Zack Godley before going after Cueto.

Unless the Giants do something big this offseason, I don’t see the offensive lineup changing much. And for a team that ranked 23rd in batting average, 29th in runs scored and 29th in on-base percentage, Cueto, and the rest of the rotation for that matter, won’t have many chances to win games. Despite me saying that you should use quality starts, the majority of leagues still use wins as a category.

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Cueto could be a nice No. 4 starting pitcher in standard leagues, No. 3 in deeper mixed. If he can get back to 190+ innings pitched and lower his walk rate, we should see another sub-3.00 ERA season. But those are two big ifs. Cueto will still be just 32 when the season starts but he already has over 1750 innings pitched. That could catch up to him in a big way. Be careful.

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